George Saunders and Contemporary Life in the United States Coming from an "unconventional" background, George Saunders is easily able to relate to the circumstances that the everyday worker goes through (Wylie). However, Saunders has the advantage of spreading his ideas and concerns about life in the United States through his short stories and novellas. Because of neoliberalism and capitalism and their correlation with the enormous wealth gap in the United States, Saunders focuses his protagonists' point of view from the perspective of the proletariat, allowing the reader to see how the life of consumerism has an impact on our society. Saunders uses no conventional methods to portray this reality. Instead, Saunders emphasizes the “absence” of certain human moral characteristics in order to divert the reader from looking into the hero's mirror – to lay the foundations of a world in which our morals are lost due to our materialistic and innate need of money. Wylie).In all Saunders stories: "Pastoralia", "Brad Carrigan, American", "Jon" and "In Persuasion Nation"; they are themes of violence, addiction and destiny. With these themes Saunders is conveying how money and power are reflected in the unconscious mindset of everyone: from the top brass to the “people at the bottom of the heap”. Saunders points out that with this type of mentality America is going into decline not only economically, but also as people morally trying to “keep positive/think positive” but perhaps money is the reason we are sinking so far into low in idleness, impatience, selfishness and so on (Saunders). Since neoliberalism, the people who are at the bottom, stay at the bottom. It doesn't matter how hard or how much they work. While this idea interacts between all the themes, what keeps the bottom part is this state of depth… middle of the card… to play into that world so that the polar bear's words seem irrational. You can relate this to how some people in the working class are happy with the job they have and don't aspire to get more because of the economic situation they find themselves in. Let's say it is difficult to find work nowadays where more and more educated people are being hired, so those without a degree are content to work where they are and do not want to ask for more due to the risk of losing their job. Some people are simply resigned to their “fate”. Saunders uses several themes of violence, fate, and addiction to reflect contemporary American life under neoliberalism and capitalism. Emphasizes the "absence" of compassionate and essential humanistic traits to highlight the decline of such aspects of humanity due to our selfish desires for materialistic goods..